


Gem Life Chronicles

by Kartoffelchan



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Maybe romance waaaaay later on, Reincarnation, SI/OC, Siblings, repost from ff.net
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-18 02:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7296004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kartoffelchan/pseuds/Kartoffelchan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My name is Rui, and I'm a reincarnated soul. I know this because I remember everything of my past life and my past death and everything that happened afterwards. Reincarnation is not what you may think it's like, it's actually very boring waiting in God's Waiting Room, and it's twice as terrifying to realize that you're now of very close relation to a fictional character. SI/OC</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a repost/double posting of my Naruto SI/OC fanfic on FF.net!

Reincarnation is not what you may think it's like.

Some like to think that it's a reward or punishment for what you've done. That one moment you're dying and the next you're being born, or something along those lines, but it's not _exactly_ like that.

Sure you die, but then you're taken away to wait until you are reborn. That's right, people may say that Florida is 'God's Waiting Room' and it couldn't be farther from the truth. The real God's waiting room is much like a doctor's office, only you know you're dead and everyone else [Or perhaps I should say, every _thing_?] is dead and it's hopelessly boring because there is no People or Us Weekly in the afterlife.

Some of the souls here wait longer than others, some show up and the next moment are sent out to their next destination. Some are given second chances to re-live the latest parts of their old lives, some are sent to Heaven or Hell and maybe even Valhalla or whatever. Others are sent to purgatory, and you know that they are since they have to walk through a set of doors, sometimes they are forcefully dragged or pushed through the doors.

The secretary is a kind soul, not human, though she may look it, she's not. She's just another one of Death's and God's employees, she takes on a form that would comfort you the most, to me she was a nice, brown haired blue eyed mid twenties human female with a bright smile and calm demeanor. Her name was apparently, 'The Secretary' and she was always willing to give souls candy or sudoku puzzles or some such nonsense to waste their time.

But like I said, magazines didn't exist in the waiting room since it was outside of time. It's sorta hard to explain but basically the jist of it is that years, months, weeks, didn't matter, and thus what would there be to report? You've already died, you left your world and don't need to know any more about it.

I swear that I waited there for like 5 years, never getting hungry or tired really, though I would sleep without realizing it, only waking when somebody shuffled close to me or someone's dramatics attracted my attention. During that time I saw people come and go before I did, but I wasn't too worried, after all there were people from all across time and space and realities who were there, some from the 1500's of my world, others even came from the far future.

Either way it was boring, but it also meant that when it was my time to be called through to whatever it is that happened I was beyond ready to just get this done and over with.

Turns out it is a lot like a doctor's appointment and job interview all rolled into one. Two figures, Death and God, made you sit on those odd doctor bed thingies, first with inane chatter as they took a 'check-up' on your soul. Some souls went through too much and couldn't be reincarnated, they would be sent on to Heaven or whatever after-life of their choosing, some souls were too tarnished and automatically sent to hell.

After that Death would ask you question in regards to your death, if you think you went before your time, if you needed extra counseling or if you thought you died in a 'proper way'.

God asked me questions about my life and went over events in my life explaining why some of things that had happened had, well, happened. And what I would like to have in my next life, seeing as I had already been approved of being reincarnated since my soul wasn't too damaged or frayed.

Then they told me briefly that my family and everyone and everything close to me was fine and how they had each reacted to my death, and I remembering crying and Death counseling while God just looked sadly at me. Then they began to prepare me for my new life.

They told me that they had plans for me, since my answers fit certain criteria for a certain type of living situation, warned me that I may or may not remember everything about my past life in my new one and that on the off-chance I did then it probably wouldn't take affect until I was 'old enough to remember'. They guided me to my set of doors, luckily not the set of purgatory doors, and then they slapped me on my forehead like in those V8 commercials and I was blissfully gone.

I was born on May 23rd, to a mother, a father, an elder sister and a grandfather. I don't remember my parents, but I've seen pictures and heard tales of them, they died when our home was attacked when I was almost 5 months old.

My grandfather ended up having to take care of us, not that he minded, he was a fairly 'young' grandpa, my parents having been only nine-teen when they died. He didn't even have any grey in his hair until I was around 7, and even then he was still youthful looking, handsome and I was so proud he was my Grandpapa. He was strong and kind, even tempered and just as stubborn as us two girls were, he made sure we were raised to be respectful and have manners. He worked as a baker in a bakery he had been running for the past 10 years, while my mother was still a child. He had to do most of the heavy lifting, but it was okay since he was pretty muscular. I loved the breads he made rather than the sweets, it always made him laugh at me when I would rather eat bread than cake or the other pastries and sweets he made.

My sister was very protective and adored me, often holding my hand anywhere we went. Whether it be just down the street or anywhere in the village, she always kept an eye out for me. It wasn't like she was that much older than I, about a year and a month maybe, still she loved being the elder sister.

We lived in a place I'm sure you'll know of called Konoha, well, that's the short title. And really, with just that I'm sure you can figure out how confusing this was for me when my memories came back, especially once I realized that my elder sister was none other than Konoha's future Weapons Mistress, TenTen.

And, no, our last names were not 'Higurashi' thank you very much, I have no idea where that came from but, it was something much better. It was Ueno.

As for me, well I was named Rui, Ueno Rui.

The first time I went to the Academy was when Grandpapa and I went to go drop TenTen off for her first day of schooling. I held hands with her all the way there, her sweaty palms in mine, not that I cared. I didn't really blame her for being nervous, she barely ate anything, not even the fresh youtiao(1) my grandfather had made that morning.

"I'm so excited for you TenTen! Your mother never wanted to become a kunoichi, it'll be nice to have a ninja in the family! You'll be the very first one!" here my grandfather paused and rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully, "At least I think so. It's hard to keep track of that kind of stuff all the way from back then!"

"Thank you, grandpapa. I hope the other kids like me!" she said, and tightened her hold on my hand. I furrowed my brow, anybody who didn't like TenTen was crazy and I would gladly beat their asses, even if I was only like 5, almost 6 years old.

"You'll be just great, Nee-chan! If anyone makes fun of you just tell us and we'll show 'em that you're awesome!" I said, fire showing in my eyes. Even before my reincarnation she was one of my favorites, alongside the rest of her team and Kakashi.

My sister giggled and poked my side making me squirm, "I'm sure you will! Just try not to start any fights when I'm not around! Especially with Keigo!" my sister scolded me as we made our way through the gates. I frowned, Keigo was pretty much our neighborhood's child bully, an 8 year old idiot who wouldn't know a kunai from a shuriken, he was _that_ dumb. He seemed to think that just because he was related, albeit very very distantly, to the Daimyo that he was better than all of us. Too bad that I was so little or else I'd break his nose for sure...

"Don't worry, your big strong grandpapa is going to make sure our little Gem(2) here stays safe in the bakery until you come home!" My grandfather said patting my head with his gigantic paw of a hand.

Once Nee-chan was settled in we left, stopping to pick up a few things, mainly presents for my sister. I also got to pick out a book to read since it would be sorta boring at the shop, I would probably end up sitting behind the counter and occasionally making small talk with customers, and it made me curse the minutes until TenTen came home from the Academy.

Time passed, I ended up going to the academy with hopes of becoming a useful kunoichi the year after my sister did and I paled slightly at the class roster, that's right, TenTen was the year above the Konoha Nine, and I didn't really want to become one of them, thank you very much. My sister would already have her hands full, I would much rather just be a useful ninja to the village, not one of _them_.

Don't get me wrong, I had thought about going out of my way to change things to see if I could make things better for the people involved in the story, but then I realized that I was not a very lucky person, in the sense that when I reached out to do something it failed horribly, it was one of the things that seemed to transfer to this life from my past one. It seemed any time I tried to be heroic or dramatic it pretty much died and I almost always heard a "Wah-Wah" go off in the background when it happened so this time I just decided to go with, "Let's just be a useful background character that nobody knows."

Only thing being that while this was a real world, people still acted like anime characters, so I ended up coming off as kind of serious and an antisocial know-it-all. It wasn't my fault! I mean I was just taking my school work seriously, and if I was ahead in the 'civilian' studies department it wasn't my fault, blame fate. I didn't make many friends with the girls in my class since most of them were nothing more than fluff at the moment, Ino, Hinata, and Sakura were definitely included in that.

Sure, Hinata was a good girl and not as annoying, but she spent a lot of time being afraid of being right in her work, and it showed in her homework and it our class work and it drove me up the wall because I knew it wasn't her fault completely but still it was annoying. I tried to encourage her a lot before dropping back when I made her cry by accident and I really didn't want to push her too hard.

So, yeah, my academy years were pretty much spent with me studying and training in any spare moment I could, and at least it showed in my results. It helped that I had a slight edge to the competition because of my prior knowledge and of course TenTen was always available to help me if I needed it. The only people in my year who didn't care about my 'attitude' were Chouji, Shikamaru, Shino, and Naruto. Sasuke didn't care until it became clear that I knew my stuff, even when he didn't, which was not surprising seeing as he was an Uchiha with built-in mental issues.

My sister graduated and was placed on Gai's team, and for the first few weeks after school I would sneak up and watch them until Neji caught me and TenTen just looked slightly embarrassed when we were all introduced, either because her teammates were crazy or because I was the snooping little sister I didn't quite know. To be honest I was a little flustered meeting them all, it was completely bizarre but not because of Gai and Lee's 'Youthfulness' or Neji's...attitude. It was more like meeting a superhero in real life, I was completely taken in by Lee's determination, just as had in my other life, and Gai's passion for his students and teachings. I had actually teared up when one day I came to see Lee upset by his condition and because Neji had been an ass to him. I think I ended up scaring him more than anything as I broke down crying and holding him and whispering nonsense to him about how great he was and that he would grow to become even greater for like 45 minutes until Gai and TenTen came.

I still blush and duck my head in shame whenever I think about it.

It was also around that time that my sister was struggling with her dream and lack of ability to accomplish it. It was frustrating for everyone involved except for Neji since he couldn't give a rat's ass at the moment, even Gai appeared to be at a loss for a while until they stumbled on to the solution. I remember my sister coming home one day and being so happy at having found her new dream and her unique skills in sealing and weaponry and I was so proud of her. My Nee-chan was blossoming into a deadly flower and I shed tears of happiness to myself late at night for her. Seriously, she would become a legendary kunoichi, I already knew it, but still to live it with her, in a way, it was something else.

Myself on the other hand, well, I was still in the academy and studying more and more when Team Gai turned their missions less on D-ranks in Village to C-ranks and the like. I was lonely but I didn't care much, I always valued my family and those who I basically thought of as family above any sort of friendships, I had been hurt once to many in my past life over stupidity that I didn't want to stress myself out over something like that. If I wasn't home I was usually in the library or on an Academy level training ground, working myself to make sure that I wouldn't let anyone down.

Keigo was no longer my bully, having had beaten the snot out of him enough times for him to get the point, and instead he was replaced by most of my classmates, especially the girls who thought I was just showing them up so that I could my hands on 'Sasuke-kun'. Ami especially since I occasionally stood up for other victims of her bullying, Sakura mainly because I thought she was pretty, and honestly where was Ami and her two goons to talk about looks?! I mean have you seen Kasumi or Fuki?! Kasumi has an afro, AN AFRO. And Fuki always looked like she stuck her fingers into an electrical socket.

I mean, I was a cute little girl. I'm not being narcissistic but I was cute, dammit! I had the same dark brown hair my sister had, only I wore it in a side ponytail with a gold ribbon tied onto it, a gift from my sister, and large hazel eyes. I mean, c'mon! A few tweaks to how I held myself and I could make anyone into thinking that I was defenseless as a baby bunny! Ami looked like a samurai kid with no fashion sense, in fact pretty much all of the girls had no fashion sense, so I have no idea what planet's standards they were judging my outfit off of. It was a simple pair of brown pants that ended at the knee and a long sleeved green shirt with a black tank top underneath it for when it got too hot. Perhaps it wasn't flashy or revealing enough? I snorted when I thought of that, because obviously all of the girls in my class has slammin' bodies.

Today I was practicing my kunai and shuriken throwing mainly because it helped me calm down, graduation was coming upon us and I was wondering what was going to happen for team placements. I sincerely didn't want to be on Teams 7, 8, or 10, but only 33% or whatever actually passed from my memory. I was scared that even if I passed enough to get my headband if my teacher did some sort of teamwork test I might fail, not because I wasn't team player, but because pretty much everyone else was not. And it sucked! What would happen is we failed? Would we be sent to the Academy or would we be placed in reserve or something?! I brutally threw a kunai at the marked target letting the heavy 'thunk' soothe me a bit, and I paused to take a deep breath, I needed to stop making myself freak out so much. I stood still breathing in deeply letting my 'sense' reach out, it wouldn't do if someone in my class saw my acting other than the single minded know it all kunoichi, it would just bring me more dramatics than I needed or wanted.

As I was just taking in the area I sensed a powerful aura, yeah, aura. It was different than a person's chakra since it told me more than just where they were, how much chakra they had and nature, as I had read most chakra sensors felt. I could almost taste somebody's personality through their aura and I was empathetic as well, not that surprising for me at least. This weird sensing ability is something similar to the one in my past life, being able to sense spirits and stuff like that.

Go on ahead, laugh, but I'm not making it up. It sorta ran in the family on my mom's side. My uncle had always talked about 'the color people' when he was younger and as he got older he realized he was seeing spirits, or rather their emotions.

I didn't see color people, I saw people, and I saw shadows. I heard them too, and I once met a ghost when I was younger and had gotten lost in a store. I didn't realize he was dead until I went to thank him for helping me find my way out of the dead end I was in and he was gone, like poof type gone.

So yeah, it followed me in this life but just like in my past it wasn't something I focused too much on, it came to me whenever I needed it so why focus on it when say my combat skills didn't?

There was a rustle in the bushes behind me and I let my kunai loose in that general direction, hearing a yelp as it passed over whoever was there.

"C'mon out, otherwise I'll use you for target practice." I said bluntly turning to look at the bushes, which gave another rustle before someone leapt out of them like a wild hog.

"N-No, please don't do that!" The person said and I narrowed my eyes at them. Great, it just had to be Naruto didn't it.

"Well you came out so I won't." I replied sassily, roll of my eyes and turning on my heel included. Naruto seemed to relax slightly, and began patting the dirt off of him. Inwardly I cringed, I was completely happy to stay out of everyone's way, especially Naruto's since people always seemed to get dragged into adventure with him, ones that ended up escalating from simple to dangerous.

"So, why were you running around in the forest, Uzumaki-san?" I said as I went to retrieve my weaponry so that I could practice some more, lord knows it helped put me at ease.

Naruto seem to give his standard sheepish, "heh heh" while scratching the back of his neck before saying, "Well, I just sorta pulled a prank on someone and they were pretty mad so I ran! Why are you out here?"

I turned around and gave Naruto an amused look, "Just throwing tossing some kunai and throwing some shuriken." I replied smirking and shrugging my shoulders. Naruto gave me a look before saying, "But, isn't it kinda late, I mean it's dark already."

I looked up at the sky, sure enough it was, oh well, the targets were still visible to me, "So it is, feh, I'll leave in a bit, I can still see the targets. My grandfather won't mind and my Nee-chan is out on mission so~" I just sorta shrugged before tossing my kunai again and was calmed by the 'thunk' as it hit the center.

Naruto watched me throw a few more before he walked up besides me, "Um, you seem pretty good at that, so why do you keep out here so late? And at the academy too, you're like one of the best!" he asked and I looked over at him wondering if I really stood out in the class.

I sighed, "Well I do this because it helps to calm me. In fact, most of what I do calms me, makes me feel like I could be useful someday, that I'm not just doing all of this for show. That I'm prepared to be a ninja for this village, a lot of kids in our class aren't like that because they are mature enough to see what being a ninja really is all about it. The only reason I seem so good in comparison is because I'm one of the only ones taking it seriously, Uzumaki-san." I said truthfully and was surprised by how relaxing it felt to get it off of my chest for once.

Naruto was quiet for a bit until he seemed to brighten up, "Yeah, that makes sense! You're not like the other girls who go after that Sasuke bastard-" here I gave a quiet laugh, "and you're not mean or anything. Although there was that one time with Ami-"

"Well if she wasn't being such a brat I wouldn't have cut her clothes to shreds!" I said and blushed at my sudden outburst. I looked away hurriedly while Naruto laughed until he could only pant out, "Her face though!"

I looked down at my shoes twirling a kunai on it's ring while chewing my bottom lip nervously, how much was I altering by just this simple conversation? But I didn't want to stop because Naruto was actually nice, and his aura was golden and felt like a patch of ground that been left in the sunlight and it was comforting.

"Naruto," I said suddenly and the blond stopped laughing freezing at my tone, "I-I, just wanted to let you know that even though we've never talked or anything, you're really cool, and I wish you luck at the exams tomorrow." I said looking up at him bashfully, still chewing on on bottom lip nervously, kunai no longer spinning.

I didn't wait for him to reply before suddenly shouting, "And good night see you tomorrow!" and then running away like the coward I was.

I scolded myself on the way home, I wasn't going to be his friend, not one of his precious people because I wasn't made of the stuff all of them were. I was content just being in the background, at least that's what I kept telling myself, whenever I tried to be more than whatever life gave me I was knocked down and I was brutally afraid of that here because the risks were greater. What if I ended up being on Team 7 instead of Sakura? Well I would imagine that Sakura wouldn't become Tsunade's apprentice and the world sorta needed that. I sure as hell wasn't going to become that, I had no real interest in it. I doubt I would be able to face Orochimaru and take care of the boys like she had during the chunin exams, seriously she actually had more balls than people gave her credit for.

Would that mean that I would have to be the one to try and make Sasuke not leave the village and try to make Naruto and Sasuke see eye to eye? I hoped not, I prayed not because I couldn't imagine a future where the Konoha 9 and Team Gai didn't end up like how they did. I was not in the original plot and I was trying to keep it that way as much as I could. So TenTen had family and a last name? In the grand scheme of things it didn't matter much to the plot because TenTen's value to the plot was not her sister or her Grandfather but rather her skills.

Another part of me was so worried about how badly I'd embarrass myself if I ended up being in the spotlight, I mean look at what I did to poor Lee. And, ugh, I just couldn't imagine Kakashi as my sensei without laughing myself silly, or rather hysterically. Even know I felt the hysteria bubble up as I hurried my way home.

First things first, let's just pass the academy, yeah?


	2. Chapter 2

It was about a week after we graduated, everything went the same as far I could tell. Naruto took the scroll and all that. I hated seeing him so upset about not passing and dejected while everyone else was all happy and chatting with family, sitting on that swing.

But today here he was bright and bouncing as always, the only thing that changed from canon was that instead of getting into all that drama with Sasuke and ' _ **The Kiss**_ ' and the girls, he simply sat besides me, I merely raised my eyebrow at him curiously.

Naruto was already bouncing up and down talking a mile a minute about teams and I just smiled at him unsure about my own future. I had managed to stay off the radar but I got top kunoichi of the class, I think the Class Rookie spot was rigged at this point, but whatever. Anyways, I was worried because it was looking more and more like I was going to be put in Team 7.

"Ne, Rui-chan, are you alright? You look really pale!" Naruto said suddenly breaking me out of my thoughts and I gave him a worried smile, "Ah, I'm just worried about team placements. Knowing my luck I'd get a team I wouldn't work well with..." I said and Naruto looked at me in confusion and I rolled my eyes.

"Naruto, most of the class thinks I'm an antisocial know-it-all, and most of the girls in the class think this is somehow my master plan to woo Sasuke. I'm worried that I'll be placed on a team that hates me." I explained quietly, ignoring how my mind seemed to spin in a fast pace.

Naruto seemed to understand it, or wanted to make me think he did, either way it soon went quiet when Iruka came in and began handing out assignments. I began bouncing my knee up and down nervously, itching to just vibrate into nothingness, I'm almost 100 percent that whatever happened it would suck for me. I closed my eyes screwing up my face, probably showing more emotion now than I ever had in public.

"...Team 5 will be made up of Ami, Fuki, and Rui under Kurata Koto." Iruka said before continuing and I sighed because it wasn't team 7 until I remembered who else was on my 'team'.

Damnit, this really was going to suck!

About an hour later we were retrieved by our jounin sensei, a man of average height, dark hair, and bright golden eyes. He also had a stubbly beard at it looked familiar to me but I couldn't but help thinking that it wasn't a Naruto-verse thing.

Koto came off as bubbly and cheery but at the same time leaned back and not a stickler for all but the strongest laws and rules. He took us to a nearby training ground and had us sit down in a circle before he began to introduce himself.

"Hello, my name is Kurata Koto and I am your assigned jounin sensei! I picked you all out because I specialize in special assignments mainly around espionage and the like! You all had great scores in stealth and information retaining, and since you're all such little cute girls you can probably get away with a lot of spying just by acting lost and confused! Now, I'm going to tell you some things about myself, and then you'll tell me about yourselves!" He said excitedly while Ami and Fuki looked at him slightly coldly, I on the other hand was trying to place why he looked so familiar.

"I have a wife and she just recently gave birth to my beautiful baby girl, Airisu!" he suddenly said and in a flash had a whole stack of photos on display showing off his daughter and it clicked.

No, fucking, way. I found the Naruto-verse's Maes Hughes. I bit my tongue, the only things missing were his glasses and perhaps the uniform. He kept going on about his daughter and Fuki and Ami giggled and whispered under their breaths making fun of him. I frowned, Koto and Meas were awesome as far as I could tell, and Koto's Aura was nice too.

"So now how about you guys go and share things about yourselves!" he said snapping the two others from their chatting. He looked at Fuki first who gave him a sickeningly sweet smile borderline smirk.

"My name is Fuki and I like Sasuke-kun and my friends. I don't like boring know-it-alls who only train and study all of the time." she said and Ami shot me a nasty smirk, I merely rolled my eyes, such maturity.

Next came Ami, "I too like Sasuke-kun and my friends and also don't like boring know-it-alls, I also like to design outfits in my spare time. After all, I don't need to study or train all of the time." Ami finished smirking and eyeing me out of the corner of her eye while flipping a piece of her asymmetrical hair.

"I see..." Koto said before turning to look at me, "And what about you?"

"My name is Rui, Ueno Rui and I like my Nee-chan, my grandpapa and bread. I also like training and learning things in my spare time as well as collecting different types of teas and tea sets from all around the world. My dream is to become a splendid kunoichi and someone useful to Konoha." I paused before smiling sweetly at Koto, " My only dislikes are those who are cruel without reason, bullies, and shallow people."

Koto looked amused by my answer, it seemed he was not as blind to Ami and Fuki's behavior as they liked to believe. He gave me a quick wink while Ami and Fuki acted snootily like I wasn't calling them out on their behavior, and I continued to smile sweetly at him.

"Well now that that's done and over with, we're ready to move on to part two of the test!" Koto said suddenly, slapping his knees as he stood up from the ground. Ami and Fuki looked confused, and I stood up following sensei's lead.

"Test?" Ami said, as she and Fuki finally got their asses up off the ground. Koto nodded, "Yeah, you see, you may have graduated from the academy but there's another test, this one roots out who deserves to be genin and who doesn't! Each sensei tests in different ways and about only 33% ever pass!" he said cheerfully like this was no big deal, well to me it wasn't. I had known already thanks to both my past life knowledge and TenTen's retelling of her team's tale.

"So what do we have to do, Koto-Sensei?" I asked looking up at him ready for the challenge. I would work with these two air heads if I had to, I simply hoped that they wouldn't make a huge deal about having to work with the know-it-all.

"Well, you all will be given a piece of a map that will lead you all to one of your guys' treasured belongings. Note that you don't get all pieces of map right away and that you have to solve some challenges to get them all. First one to come to me with their item gets a genin spot right away, the last two will have to battle it out!" he said and my eye twitched.

"So this a sort of glorified treasure hunt?" I asked as Koto nodded excitedly, "You got it right in one, Rui-chan! Just what I would expect from the Top Kunoichi!" he said and gave me a pat on my head. Ami and Fuki looked at me in rage brought forth by their jealousy. Inwardly I giggled.

"To make things a bit easier for you all, each of you have a color for your maps! Ami you're purple, here you go!" Koto said handing Ami a piece of parchment type paper that was a light purple and darker purple ink on it showing it as part of a map.

"Fuki your's is green!" he said like she had won some amazing and special prize, she huffed in response.

"And Rui, your's is yellow!" He said and handed me my piece, and I studied it intently only for it to show a dotted line and maybe some other markings and the directional rose in the corner.

"Now, the riddles are located on the back of your map and each will lead you to the next piece of your map and then that piece will lead you to the next and I think you get it. Each map has 8 pieces, and you have until sundown to find your item! Meet me at my home just off of main street! You can't miss it! Oh yeah, and if you fail to find your item I get to keep it! Later, girls!" and with that Koto disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Ami and Fuki looked at each other, "So, we just find the things?"

"Yes." I replied knowing very well that neither one were talking to me.

"Argh! Shut up, Ueno! Kami, I wonder what your item is, some dumb book?" Ami sneered at me and I looked at her affronted.

"You don't seriously think that I value such materialistic things, do you? I'm not like you after all." I said before turning to look at my map.

'First things first, just what has been taken from me?' I asked myself before taking off leaping towards my home, ignoring Ami and Fuki who just seemed to fume and bitch to each other about me. I paused on top of a rooftop making sure my ribbon was still in my hair, and yep, it was. No genjutsu trick, it felt the same and smelt the same. Okay, so time to keep going onwards then.

I still couldn't think of what could've been taken, I wasn't one to treasure items unless they meant something to me. My family, and although TenTen was in the village and so was the rest of her team I thought it would be kind of too out of reach for them to be taken and hidden in sensei's house. I doubt that my grandpapa would agree with doing this either, he had a business to run after all!

I leapt into the bakery scaring my grandfather slightly and he turned to look at me, "Where's the fire, Gem?" he asked and I scrunched up my face letting my senses stretch out a bit.

"Taking a test and my sensei took something of value from me, but I think figuring out just what it is first might help me." I said and he cocked his head at me and rubbed his chin, despite his hands being covered in flour.

"Hmmm, might as well check up stairs. Your sister should be out there with her team doing some training I think?" he said and I was already heading up the stairs to our home.

I began searching without moving anything, looking all over the room opening my senses which were acting a bit like a radar. I moved room to room until I found something missing.

It was of value and I have no idea how Koto knew, but apparently he did even though I usually hid it so well.

The item in question was a picture of my parents, my sister, my Grandfather and myself as a tiny baby, and was the only one I had of them. Most had been destroyed by the Kyuubi's attack, which had also taken my parents. I furrowed my brow.

I shakily turned over the map and saw the writing there in a deep orange ink.

'Where those of our past greatness are captured for all eternity, head to two'

It took me a few seconds but I got it, the second Hokage's carved head.

I took a deep breath, my instincts were telling me that this wasn't right, I kept going over the prompt.

I probably sat there for 15 minutes before I suddenly got it and I smiled, this was tricky but if I had figured this out, it would save a lot of time. I got up turning on my heel and jumping from my window landing on the ground and running towards my destination.

'I'll show you Koto-sensei!'

I ran until I came to the residential district just off of main street and began searching for Koto's house.

'You can't miss it, my arse. Let's see, what would he use to show us?' I thought and after 10 minutes I began to panic, maybe I wasn't as clever as I had thought I was, maybe there was some sort of symbol on one of the other pieces? Until something caught my eye, A small banner with our colors on it, Ami's purple, Fuki's green and my own golden yellow.

I ran up to the front door and began to knock on the door, this was a bit of a gamble but I hoped that I had seen 'underneath the underneath' properly, I was usually pretty good at solving things like this but ninja were a lot more tricky than I was used to.

The door opened revealing a beautiful blonde woman with short cut hair and bright green eyes, she smiled at me.

"I'm guessing that you're one of Koto's students?" she said and I nodded fanatically. She continued to smile at me sweetly before ushering me into her home and guiding me to a room, a room that held Koto-sensei and his adorable baby girl Airisu. He was playing with her and he shot me a grin, "Look Airisu-chan, my student has come to say 'Hi!'" he said and Airisu gurgled. I cautiously came over and sat down next to Koto, looking at Airisu and smiling; babies and young children were so cute! And they always liked me.

"I see that you figured it out, I thought you would, Rui-chan. Your academy scores aside I just knew you had the right gut instincts, and that you're extremely clever. You know, Gai talks about you sometimes, seems to think you'll make a 'splendid and youthful kunoichi' before you know it." Koto said looking down at Airisu.

"Gai-sensei is way too flattering." I blushed and mumbled. I mean yeah I wanted to be awesome, not Naruto plotline awesome but awesome and live a fulfilled life. It was one of things I regretted in my past life, I always felt like I was meant to die a hero's death.

Must be why I was sent here of all places. All of the powerful beings in the cosmos must have a sense of humour, God and Death especially.

"Well you passed my test with flying colors, not even I expected you to spend under an hour on this. Tell me your thought process..."

And so I told him, how I thought it might be best to find out what was taken, depending on what was either needed to hide it, like say if it was something big it was probably in an area would it would fit. But then I said that I had remembered his wording, 'Each map has 8 pieces, and you have until sundown to find your item!' and 'Oh yeah, and if you fail to find your item I get to keep it!' I figured that chances were he'd have the item and that the map was merely a goose chase, the map would of course lead to his house...Eventually.

After that I spent time hanging out with sensei's family, not at all worried about how Ami and Fuki were doing. It seems that Koto was only going to take in one student, or if I wanted, he could take me to another jounin waiting in the wings or something, either way I passed. Ami and Fuki had pretty much failed the moment he saw them making fun of me, and while he wasn't testing us on our teamwork he was disappointed by the snubbing they had done to me. He had looked at my academy notes and found that while I wasn't a social butterfly I was good at teamwork; The others, not so much... And Koto didn't really think they would be able to carry the mantle of Konoha Ninja correctly. After all, who would you rather trust to have your back, two petty fan-girls, or someone who took the job seriously?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter because I have a lot of explanation about Rui and stuff~
> 
> Rui was able to beat Ino and Sakura in both of their 'areas of expertise' (Taijutsu for Ino and Book Work for Sakura) due only to hard work. She only managed to scrape by with it mainly because I'd like to think that in a ninja village chunin teachers would be able to spot those who could blend the different 'disciplines' like a true ninja.
> 
> Rui's character is pretty much like, 'I have piss poor luck, but I won't let that get in the way of my survival'. She takes her ninja-career very seriously, this is mainly brought on by the fact that she has knowledge of the future and she's mentally 'older' than her peers. Of course, that doesn't mean she still won't be caught off guard or that she has nothing else to learn. Her former world is pretty much our world, and since our culture is focused on something completely different from the warrior/fighting culture of the Naruto World, she still has a far way to go as far as thinking like a true ninja.
> 
> I'm trying to make her not Mary-Sue-ish, her only true boost, besides the obvious past life thing, is her odd sensing abilities. In future chapters this will of course be expanded upon, but for the most part Rui is stubborn and hardworking. She knows that she comes from a civilian background and it's at least twice as hard to make it as a fully fledge and successful ninja than if she were from a clan background. She also has no real friends at this point in her life, and even though she was able to have lots of friends in her past life, some parts of her personality have changed in the reincarnation process. This basically means she falls somewhere between Sai's non-ability to understand emotions and Neji's want for friends (at this point in time). She's very independent, so as long as she has access to her Grandfather and her sister she's pretty much fine. That's not to say that she's not a good person at teamwork though and she'll work with any loyal leaf nin, she's focused on just being useful and doing her job like a good little drone.
> 
> I also tried to be more original in my 'Test' =w=;;; I also think that even though Konoha isn't currently under threat of war they wouldn't pass up as many as 66% of all 'graduates'. In quite a few other fics I've seen scenarios where those who fail either go back to the Academy for a 'Boot camp' sort of thing, and others go back to being civilians or career genin. In my version this happens, but quite a few graduates are chosen for the 'Tokubetsu Jounin/Specialty' track and taken on as apprentices in certain fields. Examples of this are med-nins, T&I, 'Paperwork Nins', Code workers, and the like. Rui is on track for the Information/Espionage track, possibly Anbu track if she shows a lot of promise in the future.
> 
> On a completely other note, Koto is basically Hughes because why not?! I love that man and I still feel upset about his death from FMA! There is going to be a few other kind of homage to other series in this mainly because I'm a huge sap and also for ease of knowledge. I'd like to think that every universe ever written or thought up of exists and death and God like to mess up the stories for souls.
> 
> I'd also like to hear feedback to make sure I keep on track, since I tend to ramble and the only one to give me feedback is someone who is way too nice and funny to give me any serious criticism, lol!


	3. Chapter 3

About a month passed before Koto took me to see his friend, a tokubetsu-jounin friend of his who was willing to teach me his unique fighting style.

His name was Kagami Hisato and excelled in his taijutsu and had earned his rank due to his 'unique fighting style'. It seemed to be combo of Jeet Kune Do and some kind of boxing style with kicks involved(1). His way of fighting wasn't about muscles or force, but rather about speedy strikes and precision, as well as 'moving like water'. It took me quite a while to even get the 'basics' down and I usually ended up on my butt more often than not. Kagami-sensei never went easy on me stating that my enemies wouldn't either, basically the opposite of what Koto-sensei thought.

So, yes, I technically had two sensei's, one for teaching me information gathering and espionage, the other combat. It was draining but I kept at it. I wanted to be useful and live this life to it's fullest,this also meant I had less time to 'make friends'. I know that my sister and grandfather are worried about me because of it, but I don't really care enough to fix it myself, I wasn't a social person regardless.

Koto-sensei usually took me to do a multitude of D-rank missions just to make sure I wasn't missing out on anything, especially the Tora missions although it was easy for me since cats liked me. Especially if I had mint in my pocket, any kind really, not just Catnip. Tora was partial to peppermint actually...

Kagami-sensei usually only trained me, and before I knew it I was able to hold my own against him for a least a few minutes, or whatever was enough for Kagami to give me some praise before vanishing off to wherever he goes off to. He's a bit of a distant person, not that I have the right to complain seeing as I can be quite distant as well. Still, sometimes I think the true reason Koto-sensei introduced me to Kagami was because he felt that our temperaments and personalities were similar.

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

It isn't about two weeks after I've gotten praise from Kagami-sensei that I run into Naruto, or rather, Naruto and the Konohamaru-Gang. I swallowed nervously as Naruto spots me a beckons me over, and I grudgingly go over to him. Team 7 had returned about a week from their first C-rank mission, the Mission in the Land of Waves, and Naruto was excited to tell someone about it of course.

"Hey, Rui-chan!" Naruto yelled as I made my way over to him and his 'ducklings'.

"H-Hello, Naruto-san." I replied back hesitantly He beamed at me and began chattering about how he'd been doing, and what happened to his pink haired teammate during the mission. In an odd chain of events Sakura was in the hospital due to injuries that she had received during said mission. Apparently, during the bridges construction there had been some sort of mechanical accident that had caused a pile of heavy beams to nearly kill a worker. Sakura had intervened at the last second but ended up with getting only partially crushed by the brunt of it.

"Hey, Boss, who's this? I thought you said your friend was in the hospital?" Konohamaru asked and Naruto turned to yell at him that he had more than just one friend. I smiled slightly, they were sorta adorable I'll admit, even if it could give me a headache.

"Then _who_ exactly are _you_?" The brown haired boy asked, chest puffed in pride and slight arrogance, he _was_ the Third's grandson after all...

"Ueno Rui, I graduated with Naruto, and I'm being apprenticed by Kurata Koto and Hisato Kagami." I said plainly but politely. Konohamaru didn't look too impressed but Naruto did.

"Whoa! Apprentice! That must be so cool! I bet your teachers teach you awesome things! Kakashi sensei barely teaches us anything, and when he does it's like dumb water-walking or something! Hey, hey, do you know any cool Justu, Rui-chan?!" The blond asked me all hyper and excited, I chuckled nervously. I hadn't been taught any ninjutsu yet, or at least none that would keep his attention.

"Ah, well, no, not really. Koto-sensei has been teaching me the basics as well as intelligence gathering while Kagami-sensei has been teaching me his combat style..." I said and Naruto seemed to deflate a bit before he heard about the 'combat style' part.

"Oooooooh! That sounds so cool! Could we spar so I can see some of it?! Could you teach me?!" Naruto asked with stars in his eyes. I snorted.

"Maybe later. I just got done with Koto-sensei and Kagami-sensei's style is very special so you'd have to ask him...If you could find him that is." I said and giggled. Kagami was a hard man to find, even harder to catch, I should know since he made me play 'tag' with him to increase my speed and response time.

Naruto pouted before the Konohamaru-Gang pulled back his attention to themselves, and I was invited to join them. Or rather I was corralled into playing with them. I apparently still have a soft-spot little kids it seems.

After about half an hour I heard a small squawk and turned to see Konohamaru being held by none other than Kankuro no Subaku. I furrowed my brow and stalked over to him.

"Release that boy at once, Sand-nin!" I said keeping my tone even and professional, Naruto and the crew gave a few, "Yeah!"s beside me. Kankuro snorted and rolled his eyes at me.

"Oh yeah, and what's a leaf-runt like you gunna do, huh? Besides, little brat deserves to be hit! Running his mouth off!" The puppeteer replied and I gave him a nasty smirk in reply, "Because that's the _Hokage's_ _ **grandson**_ , you idiot!" I replied and Kankuro paled, I managed to finally notice Temari, who gave herself a very loud face palm.

Konohamaru was dropped quicker than a hot potato after that statement with Naruto luckily catching him just in time.

"That would've been messy, huh?" I said boredly, angry more at Kankuro for picking on a kid than for being from a foreign ninja village, "Probably would've caused quite some political trouble for our villages."

Kankuro sneered back me before I felt another presence show up, this one being a certain bloodlust filled tailed beast container. A chill made it's way up my spine, Gaara was no joke. His aura was very 'heavy' and 'smelled' of iron, I could also faintly 'see' Shukaku's odd skin pattern lurking underneath the boy's own skin like a bruise.

"I apologize for my brother's idiocy." was all he said, and I managed a nod while also shutting up Konohamaru and Naruto.

"That's fine, but if you're here for the chunin exams you should really know that any sort of fighting pre-exams are grounds for disqualification and it's quite a long walk back to Suna..." I said and Naruto looked at me confusedly.

"Chunin exams?" He asked while the sand trio seemed to withdraw from the area slowly.

"Yeah, the chunin exams are held by the ninja villages one every six month or so. This time they're to be held in Konoha. It's known as one of the more flashy ways to become a chunin, but it's also seen as a sort of 'war games' for the villages so that wars don't break out as often." I said making sure the sand sibs were out of my sight before turning to Naruto. "At least that's what I've read and been told."

Naruto looked amazed by my info and I snorted, "I read, a lot, so I also know somethings about this. There will probably be a lot more foreign nin coming in the next few weeks, so try to keep on your toes, alright? Tell that to everyone else too, and you, Konohamaru-sama, should be with a guard 24/7. In the past other villages have used this and other supposedly 'neutral' events as a chance to kidnap, take hostages, or even try to start wars with other villages.

"Hell, a few years back Cloud tried to kidnap a Hyuuga so that they could steal the bloodline. I don't know exactly what happened, but it didn't work in Cloud's favor." I said remembering both the incident from the manga and my own memories of this world.

"Hey, I wonder if I'll be able to get into the Chunin exams!" Naruto said, deftly changing the subject and I shrugged, "Usually a genin team's sensei will sign them up, and you're down by one, Naruto."

"Yeah! And, besides, Kakashi-sensei probably wouldn't put us in even if we weren't, damn it." He muttered and pouted; I gave him a small smile.

"It's not all bad, you're all still rookies so it'd probably be for the best. My sister's team is only now going to the exams this year." I said and balanced on the back of my heels.

"Huh, what about you, Rui-chan? You don't have a team either so how will you get to be chunin?" He asked, with a hint of concern. How sweet...

"Aaah, well, I could be placed on a team that's short a member, or simply do it the most common way; a field promotion." I replied looking down at my feet. I was hoping for a field type promotion and not a flashy, "Look at what I did in the exams!" type promotion. Mainly because I wanted to be known better for my skills than my _show_ of them. Not to mention I could pace myself rather than burn myself out too early on.

"Hey! What if you get put on our team and then we get to go to the exams together!" Naruto said and I shook my head, "Naw, it'd be best for y'all to wait for Sakura to come back. You guys have been a team for a while already."

"If you say so..." Naruto said, not fully convinced.

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

The next day I went to Koto-sensei's home, ready to meet up for my lessons. I was greeted by Koto's wife again, and led to the living room only to pause slightly seeing a very familiar figure.

'And what the hell is he doing here?!' I thought making my way into the room. Koto beamed at me before motioning towards the familiar figure, "Rui-chan, I'd like you to meet Hatake Kakashi! He wants to put his team into the upcoming chunin exams, but he's down one kunoichi so I decided he could borrow mine!"

I shot them both a glare, "We're just rookies and I've never worked with any of them..." I said and Kakashi gave me an eye-smile.

"No worries, Rui-chan! You still have a week to prepare for the exams!"

And with that I was shanghaied into being Sakura's replacement in Team 7 for the Chunin Exams. _Oh joy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)'Jeet Kune Do and some kind of boxing style with kicks involved'- Jute Kune Do is a 'style' of fighting/philosophy created by Bruce Lee and is said to be 'the style without style' because it doesn't have stances and the like. The boxing style with kicks involved is basically French Boxing which unlike other style with kicking only allows full foot contact as opposed to like shin hits. To help you picture Kagami's fighting style watch some of how Cowboy Bebop's Spike Spiegel fights. I know for a fact that some of the moves have basically been traced from the Cowboy Bebop Movie into the Naruto anime for Neji but she's more boxer than palm strikes user [obviously]and she has a lot more dodging, contorting and kicking.
> 
> To make a larger difference between the Hyuuga style and Kagami's, the Hyuuga's tend to be in one stance and just sort of strike out always being the aggressor except for the rare case when they are forced to dodge. Kagami's style is more about moving like water and weaving in and out to both strike out and pretty much 'roll with it', not to mention I don't think I've ever actually seen a canon Hyuuga fight where they actually use kicks? I could be wrong but *shrugs*


	4. Chapter 4

Two days later and I was being run ragged by Team 7's dysfunctional teamwork. Without Sakura around all Naruto and Sasuke cared about were annoying and trying to one up each other. I was practically ignored by everyone involved, mainly out of necessity thanks to Kakashi's 'teaching style' and the boys.

Still, I knew I was going to reach my limit soon as both of the male genins of the team started another brawl and Kakashi went over to try and calm them down. My eye lid was twitching, badly, as in it felt like there was a bug making it move.

I took in a deep breath, ignoring a piece of Naruto's jumpsuit and one of Sasuke's sandals fly right by my head. I calmly reached into my weapons pouch looking for a very specific scroll, ah yes, here it was.

I unsealed the scroll, calmly ignoring all of the commotion around me, although I felt Kakashi's eyes on me now, a bit interested. Thanks to his team's just plain awfulness I hadn't been able to show them all just what I could do. And that was about to change.

I pulled the small fingerless looking gloves over my hands, tweaking a strap around my wrist to make sure that it would stay on. Because while they may look like fingerless gloves they weren't, they were gauntlets Kagami-sensei had given me a while back. They were weighted so that I would wear them while training with him to make my punches and other hits quicker, per what Kagami's style demanded. I wouldn't be like Lee or Shippuden Sakura anytime soon, but they helped.

They were a work of art, truly, and I treasured them greatly. You see, they were made out of a chakra conducting metal, on top of that had some pretty nice seal work, giving it three 'stages'. First stage was pretty much this stage, normal slightly padded fingerless gloves.

Second stage and third stage will have to wait for another day, heh heh~

I looked them over again, nodding to myself once they were properly on before jumping into the boys' fray. It took about 10 seconds for me to punch both of them on the back of their heads, sending them straight towards the ground, twitching. I stared down at them like bugs and possibly flaring some KI, making them whimper. Well Sasuke did a near silent one, but it was there.

"Listen up you two idjits! If we're to take the chunin exams in the coming week y'all need to get you shit together for more than two seconds! Ya hear?!(1)" I screamed at them, "People die in these things, we could die in this if we don't work together like a proper team of ninja we should be! Naruto, give up trying to be 'better' than Sasuke, it's not going to happen, and not because you lack the skill or anything but because it's a dumb thing to do!" I said and Naruto looked slightly ashamed. Good.

"And you, Uchiha! I don't care what you were at the Academy, I don't care about your clan or your goals of revenge, I. do. not. give. a. shit! You will learn humility and proper manners even if I have to beat them into you! Life sucks all around for everybody-" here I saw his black eyes flare like he was about to interupt me, "Don't even dare to interrupt me when I'm talking, boy!" I pushed more KI at him, I was not going to let this prick keep with his attitude. I was sick of it in my past life and I'm beyond sick of it now in this one where I actually had him try to lord over me!

"Life sucks for everybody, but you know what sucks even more?! Dying for no reason! Especially when it could've been avoided if two dunderheaded boys would actually grow up and act like proper shinobi!" I finished my rant, still feeling angry enough to kill something. I was slow to anger but once you did watch out...

The training ground was quiet for a few moments before I heard clapping and turned to see Kakashi. I glared at him, and I should've given him a ration of crap too but he was technically my superior and I liked having a flawless record.

"Well, then, now that Rui-chan has gotten us all back on track let's talk more about the upcoming exams!" He said and just like that everything went back on track, well mostly. Sometimes the boys would start their shit and I would flare my KI or aura at them and they'd stop. Also, Sasuke kept shooting me glares which were annoying and apparently unstoppable, but something that didn't really bother me in the end. After all I'm pretty sure mine were scarier.

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

The morning of the exams was bright and cheery, little birds chirping, flowers swaying in the breeze, the only thing that disturbed the nice day were the genin trying to act like they were all that, strutting around, trying to intimidate their opponents. I sniggered when Sasuke began doing this too. It reminded me of a peacock...and I hate peacocks.

I had spoken to my sister about the exams, telling her that I'd be there but I didn't want her to protect me from anything that happened. As much as we'd both like for us to fall back on our usual behavior it just wasn't going to work out this time. Neji was a taskmaster and would not fail, something about fate or destiny, my sister had zoned out when he started on about it, and Lee would probably need all of the help he could get with his somewhat short attention span.

I loved the kid but left to his own devices his mind went wandering off into training land and that usually led to something attention attracting and the very opposite of what these exams required. He was like a sunbeam in a world or shadows right now.

Speaking of which here we were watching Lee get kicked away by some Chunin in disguise. I huffed my breath when they made a move against my sister, my 'teammates' looked intrigued.

"Just leave them for now." I said and Sasuke nodded while Naruto gave me a confused look, "It's a genjutsu, dobe." was all the Uchiha said before continuing on his way. Of course a few moments from that Lee appeared in our way and challenged Sasuke to his fight, and just shook my head sadly, knowing that once Lee got something into his head it was tough to change it.

But wait, I could still use that. A wicked smile took my face as I launched myself at Lee, crying big fat crocodile tears, "LEE-NIIIIIII!" and blubbering nonsense until I saw his train of thought change from fighting Sasuke to getting away from me without causing my sister's wrath to befall him.

"Uh, R-Rui-chan! I-I don't-?" he squeaked and I only let go when I sensed my sister nearby. In the blink of an eye he was gone, and I began laughing quietly. Oh man, it was sorta mean to do that, but it beat allowing their fight to take place. Too risky.

"Wh-what just happened?! Who was that bushy-brows guy? Rui-chan?" Naruto asked beyond confused and he actually seemed to be quite terrified. Sasuke merely grunted in agreement.

"That was Rock Lee, one of my Nee-chan's teammates. I don't want us getting disqualified for fighting or even sparring before the exams, so I used the old tears on him! He's been scared of them for a while now." I said shrugging my shoulders and turning my back on them, ready to go back upstairs to the meeting room.

The other two followed behind me, Naruto staring at me in wonder and Sasuke being his usual annoying sulky self. As soon as we entered Ino came hurdling from nowhere and tackled Sasuke, or attempting to as he dodged at the last second, lucky bastard. Instead she went sailing into me. How, I can't tell you, but it happened.

"Eh, sorry about that Ueno!" She said before getting up and going after Sasuke. I rolled my eyes rubbing my back, a bruise was sure to form there thanks to the Ino-Comet and the door that had just closed behind me when she hit.

"Rui-chan, ya alright?" Naruto asked and I nodded. Ino was far lighter than Kagami-sensei and he'd done far worse for training.

"Ueno-san, what are you doing here? I thought Sakura was on Naruto's team?" Shikamaru asked coming towards us, Chouji in tow.

"Ah, Sakura-san got injured on a mission and will be out for another week I think. Even then she'll need some more recovery time and rehabilitation, so I got dragged in as her substitute for the exams." I stated plainly, looking away from him. It sucked to remember that I was taking Sakura's spot when she should probably be here, not me. She needed the development more than I did, and it was probably pretty messed up that I kept thinking that this was just a manga or anime. It was real and oh god, that meant that the monsters were realtoo. Orochimaru, Madara, Tobi, Akatsuki, Kabuto-

"Hey, you guys might want to keep it down!" Speak of the devil! I turned and glared at him, striding over to him just in time to see him take out his nin-info cards. If it wasn't such a serious thing IRL, I would've laughed, but this man is a traitor with the ability to get info about us all. It wasn't very funny when you think about it that way.

"So do you want to see anybody's?" He asked, eyes gleaming like a demon ready to make a deal, or at least that's how I saw it. I stepped up in front of Sasuke interrupting him and asking the silver haired fiend, "Yours then."

In all of the fics I ever read about my sorta of situation, they either always let it pass or try to shame Kabuto into stopping. But, see, to shame him meant making Kabuto feel guilty, he didn't feel that about betraying the Leaf or anything really; that had died when his adoptive mother did I suppose. I flipped it on him, even if the info he fed us was a lie, it meant that my actual comrade's info wouldn't be shouted across the room. And that's truly the thing about the Nin-Info Cards Situation that bothered me. It wasn't about seeing Kabuto telling anyone the information, it was that he had no tact, unless of course he was trying to purposefully put others at a disadvantage. We're ninja, we are always listening to for information on our enemies, Koto-sensei told me so, and if Kabuto wanted to allow for Lee or Sasuke, or Naruto and hell, even Gaara, stick their figurative necks out, well he was very much mistaken in that regard.

Kabuto paused, staring me in the eyes. I could see some amusement in there, and I fought back the chills I felt. Kabuto was a broken individual, but that wasn't an excuse in my book. He chuckled before shrugging and saying, "Well I never really collected info about myself, there was no need-"

"Then put those cards away, dumbass!" I hissed at him, wishing that I could just kill him now, but he was waaay above my level.

"Hmpf." He leaned back but then made a joke about how I was being 'overly paranoid' and about how 'we're all leaf nin over here, and I just wanted to help you rookies!' I continued to glare at him until he started talking on about the other villages and I smiled sickeningly sweet when the Sound nin made him sick. Even as a ruse, throwing up was still pretty unpleasant.

"Looks like he was the one that had to be careful about inciting others, huh, Ueno?" Shikamaru said smoothly, acting boredly but I felt his aura shift suspicion towards the silver haired medic-nin. I nodded, "Indeed, and you may call be Rui. It's quicker."

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

The first exam went much the way it did in 'canon', which is such a weird way of putting it but, eh.

I was actually able to answer some of the questions and gladly let Ino possess me long enough to copy my answers. I wasn't Sakura and fighting off Ino was too much of a bother, besides maybe I could make that into a favor she owed me someday? Blackmail and debts are how this world seem to function.

To see Ibiki's scars in real life wasn't...It wasn't like a lot of people reacted to it, by turning green and/or vomiting. I felt... pained by it in a sense. It made me wonder just how all of that had happened to him, why he probably had to go through that alone only to have his fellow Leaf ninjas, actually all ninjas look at him in horror and despair. He was also sorta awesome to me, because he survived it all and knowing his position, whoever did that to him failed to break him. I definitely thought of him as one of the Leaf's heroes, and one of my personal idols.(2)

Anko was pretty cool to see in person too. Her aura was wild but in a fun way, it had some fire to it, but was almost kind in the way it burned. It's odd to describe, it wasn't as dark and scary as she probably wanted it to be, not that I would ever tell her that.

Of course I was able to sense Orochimaru and I almost right then and there told the proctors, but I'm not sure they'd believe me. I'd never told anyone but TenTen about my 'Aura Sensing' and she sorta gave me, "If you believe in it than that's good enough" type thing. Not very comforting, especially when she just patted me on the head and gave me a piece of candy afterwards.

Anko gave us the rules as well as the waivers and, in pure curiosity, I read the waiver. It basically did just say that the proctors and Konoha could not be held for any deaths that happened to us genin, but it also had points to cover corpse retrieval and disposal. Apparently a copy of these would be sent out to all of the participating villages and from there the Kages or whatever other village leaders they had in place would be able to inform the families, if any, and what they wanted to do with the body. I guess this was the dark side of Naruto not shown to my old world, hm.

Soon after we found ourselves entering the Forest of Death to start off part two of the Chunin Exams. I had a plan of setting up 'traps' for other teams and letting their aura's of eager-ness about our scroll tell me, or rather us, what we needed to know. But even then I doubted it would work well enough to fully rely on. All I really knew was that it would solve a lot of problems if we got to the Tower ASAP. I figure the less Orochimaru's window of time was, the better.

"Let's stop here for now." Sasuke said and both Naruto and I nodded. I tugged nervously at my gauntlets, closing my eyes and letting my sensing work. It was sorta like sending my own aura out like a sonar and waiting for a ping back. It was definitely not chakra that I did this with, because it felt as if I part of me, a shade of me, left, but it always came back. I could do this for hours and not get tired, well okay I would, but not from strain. Rather from how peaceful it was to just let the world move around me instead of trying to keep up with it.

"Nobody's close. We're good." I said while giving him the hand sign that things were indeed not all good. Basic Leaf hand code, and yes, that was thing. I was made sure to memorize it thanks to Koto and Kagami who drilled me on it at random times.

Half of all of our time spent training was spent on me teaching them codes and this hand 'alphabet' as well as making them sharper, Naruto especially. I mean, sure, they did both graduate, well sorta, but Sasuke was only interested in the showy type of ninja warfare, the type that his clan had been well known for. So I spent my time trying to knock that showy-ness out of him, after all, 'Death is the ultimate equalizer' or whatever.

Naruto, while not the sharpest tool in the shed, was still a master of 'Thinking-On-My-Toes' battle tactics and was superb at stealth when he wanted to be. I just needed to make him think of training and running missions like when he went to pull his legendary pranks. Oddly enough Naruto tended to actually overthink himself in training and then getting distracted, once he had a focus it was pretty much all that he thought about.

So I had both boys learn the codes, symbols, etc used by the Leaf as well as making them think about situations and how to work their way through them without making a huge fuss about it. Kakashi seemed to be very pleased with this all and had actually managed to chip some actual teaching into the brief amount of time we had available to us.(3)

'Naruto. Distraction. Round.' I signed, Naruto had the best stealth out of us and would be able to sneak away and hang back until the other enemy genin had been lured out.

"Well, that's a relief 'cuz I really gotta go!" he said and chuckled sheepishly. Sasuke glared at him and I facepalmed, "Then just go already! Sheesh! But not too close to me or I'll pummel you!" I said trying to act the part of the idiot short tempered kunoichi. Most kunoichi seemed to default to this and a lot of male shinobi took it as all bark and no bite, 'Idiots.' I thought while going to chat with Sasuke about our 'plans for the exam', in reality we were both just waiting for the enemy genin to make their move.

"Hey, guys! Phew, that was close~!" Naruto said and immediately dodged a kunai thrown at him thanks to Sasuke.

"Yo, welcome to the party my friend." I said flatly while fluctuating my KI, just enough to cause the Ame nin to drop his henge.(4)

"How-?" He began but leaped away again as Sasuke took another shot at him, this time a fire ninjutsu.

"Your weapons holster is on the wrong side; you also don't have the cheek injury Naruto had." He stated calmly, not taking his eyes off of the enemy nin, who was sweating from a combo of both Sasuke and I's combined KI and overall presence.

"Also, he never really went away, right Naruto~?" I said, as Naruto and a few of his clones dropped down onto the ground around us.

"I found the other two, one of them had the scroll!" Naruto said as one of his shadow clones kicked a down and bound Ame nin, who grunted.

"Tch!" The first Ame Nin said and made to go towards me hoping to get passed to the Naruto clone holding the scroll up rather stupidly. I clotheslined him spectacularly, I loved doing that to people, in both this life and the past.

"Idiot." Sasuke muttered as the Ame Nin groaned from his spot on the forest floor.

"What should we do with them, guys? I'm all in favor of getting rid of them?" I said and watched mildly surprised as both of my current teammates pursed their lips in distaste.

"Do you have to?" Naruto implored, looking at me with his large sky blue eyes. I snorted, "No, but we have to make sure they are out of the running for the exams as well as no chance for revenge later on, remember what I told you-"

"Yeah, the chunin exams are 'war games' or whatever. I dunno what that really even means..." Naruto grumbled as he dismissed his other clones and Sasuke finished tying up the the last Ame nin.

"Ueno, when you say 'out of the running'-" The Uchiha began before I motioned to cut him off.

"I'll just do enough to make sure they cannot participate for the rest of the exams." I said and he nodded, slightly relieved I think. I looked over to Naruto where he shrugged and looked away. I gave a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Alright, well, you two take the new scroll we got and head out a bit, I'll meet up with y'all in a bit." I said knowing that Naruto probably wouldn't really enjoy what I was about to do to 'defenseless' people. I had decided that the serious blood and guts and lack of empathy things would probably fall upon either Sasuke or myself. I was okay with it, but I worried about the other two since they were really just children where I was far older mentally and died and all that rot.

"What should we use?"

"Beginner." I said plainly and they both nodded. I had told them once it was revealed where and what would be the second part that we'd have to use code words and pass phrases. I had taught them a few that were based off of songs from my past life, not that they knew that. Either way it was the safest way, to have code words and pass phrases that we could all recognize and use by one word title.

"Right, we'll start going eastward, alright?" Sasuke said and I nodded before turning my back towards them and senseing them leave me behind. I cracked my knuckles, and tugged on my gauntlets.

"You know, I really wish you guys hadn't have crossed me today. You see, I'm a bit high strung, and now I've gotta hurt you." I said and released the seal for the second stage of my gloves.

The second stage was one designed for crushing and or smashing things. They helped to focus my punches on one spot with sorta amazing results. I won't be Tsunade level or even current Lee-level as far as destruction goes, but breaking bones I could do.

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

By the time I had met back up with the boys they had already set up what would most likely be 'dinner' at this point.

"Halt!" Naruto said upon spotting me and I nodded my head.

"Are we dreaming? Do we believe in the future?" Sasuke said, kunai in hand.

"With no fears, with no regards to our limits, throwing caution to the wind, are we dreaming now?" I replied and they relaxed slightly. I settled myself down in the small 'camp' they had made.(5)

"Any trouble?" I asked picking at my roll of bread I had managed to seal away in a scroll. I was beginning to worry about when Orochimaru would show up but I forgot when, not to mention I'm pretty sure Sakura didn't leave three crippled Ame Nin behind in the original storyline.

"Naw, and hey! Those other guys had the scroll we needed too! Boy, we sure got lucky~!" Naruto said munching on his food. I felt a bit of relief at that.

"Good, now we just need to get to the Tower without any-" and just as I was about to let my guard down a bit a giant gust seemed to come at us blowing us away from our camp, and then I remembered.

Yeah, this was probably when Orochimaru showed up...

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)- Rui's usage of the slang 'Y'all' in this is sorta weird but I wanted Rui to have something that kind of gives away her usual 'Graceful/Polite' appearance, and thus when she's really upset she slips out of it and goes into a sort of country style/improper way of speech. In Japanese she'd probably use slang when upset and maybe like a weird 'country' accent, because I know that they exist pretty much everywhere around the world, Japan being no exception.
> 
> (2)- I will always feel this way about Ibiki, since the first time I saw his 'reveal' til the day I die! He's a BAMF and I think his scars and such are signs of how strong his is.
> 
> (3)- This goes more in depth but I imagine with how Naruto essentially learns and does things is that he gets too wrapped up in taking things in too fast because he wants to be so strong and hokage already dattebayo, that he gets overwhelmed and overthinks simple concepts. It's the same way I was with Chem and AP Chem in High School, mainly with stoichiometry. I got too wrapped up in "But how does this thing do the thing?!" instead of just doing the math.
> 
> I'd also like to add in that Kakashi probably doesn't know how to teach rookie genin because he never had the experience of growing in that way. He was pretty much Minato's student since his dad's death [From what i can tell anyways] and was always a genius, and sometimes those people suck at trying to teach others because the concepts come to them easily as flexing their fingers or breathing and they can't understand why some people can't understand. Rui is sort of working as a bridge here, since she isn't a genius and has learned Leaf Hand Code due to her two 'Masters' drilling her within an inch of her life. Since she understands the concept already and can sort of tell the boys what they need to do to understand and kakashi can rely on her to know already.
> 
> (4)- Rui's KI/Aura thing can cause disruptions in a person's chakra system, allowing for someone to hold a grasp on techniques like Henge, although I'm still not sure what Henge is exactly. It's either an actual transformation technique or a sort of genjutsu, either way Rui fucks with it due to her Aura/Spiritual/KI 'energies' throwing it out of whack. She won't always be able to sense when someone is under a henge unless their Aura/Soul gives something away but she'll pretty much always be able to dispel their bullshit up to and including 'Sealed Henge' [Which fanon denotes as 'unbreakable' since it's 'seals and we dunno fuinjutsu as thoroughly as we do the other jutsu types'. *rolls eyes*]
> 
> (5)-The song is Beginner by AKB48. These are lyrics from parts of the song just in english since writing them in Japanese would be sorta pointless to readers IMHO.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: There will be a change of perspective going from 1st to 3rd, sorry about it! Only for this chapter and maybe certain select chapters in the future!

Ueno grabbed at both his and the dobe's backs, grasping their shirts in a tight chakra enhanced grip when all of them went sailing due to the gust of wind. Sasuke choked slightly as the collar of his shirt dug into his neck but was relieved when they finally stopped moving and the group of three was still all together.

"What the heck was _**that**_?!" Naruto said in a false whisper, looking at Rui who was flexing her fingers.

"Wind jutsu I think." She replied in her usual no nonsense tone. Sasuke had to hand it to her, out of the female graduates of their year she was closest to what he would deign to call a true kunoichi. During the last month or so she had seemingly done a better job of teaching both the dobe and himself than his own sensei, Kakashi.(1)

He remembered when he had sparred against her and was surprised at her speed and flexibility, not to mention the precision of her strikes. When asked what style it was she had simply looked at him and replied, "A personal style of one of my masters, a Tokubetsu-Jounin named Kagami Hisato." It was then Sasuke was informed that while he himself had been placed in the traditional genin team format Rui had been handpicked by two separate masters. He had been bitter about it at first, after-all he needed the most skills and training so that he could kill his brother and avenge his clan. Later, once he had lashed out at the team, including Kakashi, he was told just why Rui wasn't placed on a team and given to two masters for apprenticeship.

_"Maa, maa, calm down, Sasuke-kun~ Before you blow your top again let me explain the system behind the traditional one." Kakashi had said ruffling the Uchiha's fluffy hair._

_"You see, Sasuke, what I said about the 66% failure rate is somewhat incorrect. You see, the academy you all went to, that we all went to, isn't just for schooling, but also recruiting for other divisions in the Village's forces. Take for example the ninja who are involved in the paperwork process in the Hokage's Tower. They specialize in data entry and organization, and despite having a somewhat boring sounding job, without them our entire mission taking and payout departments would fail. Now, sometimes chunin, like your old teacher Iruka, can sub in for them if for whatever reason they cannot be there, usually things like sick days, bereavement leave, maternity or paternity leave, and sometimes very rarely when they are given a mission or when the tower get's flooded with paperwork._

_Other divisions include; R &D, Medic-Nins, the Cryptology department, T&I, and Intelligence. I suppose one could also count the Aviary Department, but you can usually lump them into the Cryptology department. Sometimes teachers in the academy will spot a student who would be best off in one of those other departments, Rui for instance showed high skills in information gathering, information retention, and problem solving."_

_"That's why I was placed under Koto-sensei." Rui piped in giving Sasuke a flat look, "Koto-sensei is a major authority on investigation, espionage, and criminal forensics. Essentially, I will probably end up in the Intelligence department or ANBU at some point for the majority of my career. Since your clan is no longer around to use its members as the police force it's fallen to ANBU and the Intelligence departments, as well as some T &I. Kagami trains me as a favor to Koto-sensei and because his fighting style works very well in restraining and capturing as well as combat." She had stated and he must've made a face because she frowned and continued to say, "I apologize for bringing up your clan but I figured you'd understand what my 'role' in the Village's forces is and why I have two masters if you could connect it to something more familiar."_

He had stopped his bitterness there when Kakashi also explained that Rui's route meant that she would probably work more behind the scenes rather than a full on combat team like Team 7 really **_was_**.(2)

"Where did it come from? Rui-chan?" Naruto asked bringing Sasuke back to their present situation. The girl furrowed her brow and wiggled her nose, a sign of her 'sensing' the environment before she shoved both of them down to the ground allowing them to dodge a volley of kunai.

"I think their original plan was to separate us with that gust." The young kunoichi said and Sasuke grunted.

"Then that last attack was to lure us-" he began but was cut off as a giant snake seemingly appeared out of the ground making a grab for one of them.

"UP!" Rui shouted leaping up into the giant trees looming overhead with Sasuke following not even a second later. Naruto wasn't quite quick enough and got smacked away by the snake's large head.

"Naruto!" Rui shouted losing sight of him and seeing the snake going after him. She began biting her lip and scrunching up her nose trying to 'sense' whatever she could.

"The enemy is still here. Only one." she replied and Sasuke scowled 'That's weird.' he thought before they had to leap back out of the way of another volley of weaponry.

"Tch, I had been hoping to separate you all, but it seems that brat-girl was quick enough to latch on to you. Oh well, I've gotten rid of at least one!" a voice said, Sasuke not being quite able to discern from where. Rui's expression was thunderous with rage, "I wouldn't count him out just yet you bastard snake!" she shouted and was then sent flying into the trunk of the tree branch they were on by a figure's strong kick.

"Ueno!" Sasuke began going towards her but found himself being stopped by a harsh uppercut and then beat around by the enemy whom he still hadn't been able to see. When he landed he was finally able to lock on to the enemy, a pale Grass-Nin of indeterminate gender. Far behind the grass nin was Rui trying to catch her breath.

"My my, I expected more out of the last Uchiha! I had even heard you had awakened that delicious kekkei genkai of yours, what a disappointment~"The Grass-nin said licking it's lips with a freakishly long tongue.

'That's the same grass-nin from before!' Sasuke thought to himself before getting up and allowing his Sharingan to appear.

The Grass-nins face was now sporting and creepy blood-thirsty smile, leaking KI everywhere and Sasuke shuddered. It was worse than Zabuza's by quite a lot but he refused to freeze up like last time.

"Oho~ Look at the little boy still standing even with my KI! Yes, that's a check mark on the list!" the enemy said before launching itself at the Uchiha.

During this time Rui had finally regained her breathing and was thankful that her preliminary health check showed that she hadn't had any of her ribs broken.

'Shit, what do I do?!' the girl thought anxiously. The KI thus far hadn't bothered her much, but still she was scared knowing just who that Grass-Nin actually was. 'Why me? Damnit, this should be Sakura's deal not mine!' she thought before looking up to see Sasuke fending off some hits from the 'Grass-Nin'.

'Should I try and get Naruto? Or should I try to help Sasuke even though Orochimaru doesn't want to really kill him?! That Snake-Bastard won't hold back on me will he? I mean he needs Sasuke's team to pass but-' Rui shook herself trying to stop the mental ramblings she was in.

"WAH!" Sasuke shouted and Rui made up her mind, launching herself higher into the branches above before leaping down and attempting to catch Orochimaru off guard.

Of course the Sannin just grabbed her leg and tossed her into the struggling Uchiha with a chuckle. "I had nearly forgotten about this brat! It's nice to know that at least she'll get you through the rest of the exams~! My spy had said that the only girl member on the team was a pink haired weakling, but here you are!" He said gleefully as he watched the genin help each other up.

"Just what is it that you want?!" Sasuke said, shaking off Rui's grasp on his arm, Orochimaru smirked.

"That's a surprise, my little Uchiha~! Now, why not try this again!" The Snake Sannin said lunging at the two genin, Sasuke leapt forwards to meet him while Rui slid back out of range, trying to reach out with her senses to check on Naruto.

"Gah!" Sasuke went tumbling back over towards her, she absently caught his shoulder to straighten him out.

"Sorry, Sasuke-san. I've been trying to sense Naruto, but that snake went out of my range with him." she said taking him and jumping up on to a higher branch when Orochimaru sent a justu at them.

"Hn, figures that dobe's missing when we need him." the Uchiha said in a sour tone. Rui cracked a small smile before they felt Orochimaru land on their branch, making it shake slightly.

"Now, now, children~ Let's not run away like rabbits! For one thing it's disgraceful and for another, I NEED YOU TO STAND STILL! Kukuku~" Shouted the Sannin as he flared his KI to a high point causing Sasuke to freeze and Rui scowl.

"Rotten bastard!" Rui shouted when Orochimaru made to bite Sasuke using just his head and long neck. She managed to rip off the skin layer he had been hiding behind(3) before he bit into the Uchiha and then swung his head knocking her off of the branch, making her fall to the forest floor below..

Just before she hit the forest floor something came out from the brush and grabbed her out of the air holding onto her safely.

"Sorry for the wait, Rui-chan, Teme!" A very familiar voice shouted, "After all a hero shows up at the very last second to save the day right?!"

And there he was, Konoha's number one unpredictable ninja and Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi, Uzumaki Naruto. Rui snorted getting out of his arms, vaguely sensing Orochimaru already fleeing the scene.

"Naruto, you got here a little too late." She said looking at the ripped skin still in her hand, narrowing her eyes at it in revulsion. Naruto blanched at the sight of the skin dangling in Rui's hand before she snapped her head up to the branches above and slowly making her way up.

"Wh-what happened?!" He asked nervously looking between the area they were headed towards, Rui's grim expression, and the skin in her hands.

"We were attacked by someone who wasn't really a genin, I'd say even someone higher than a chunin. In fact, I can think of only one person who it'd be and we're lucky he wanted us alive." Rui mumbled before landing on the branch where Sasuke was writhing in pain even though he was unconscious.

"Wh-what do you mean? Wh-who did this? Why-" the blond began but was cut off by Rui shushing him accidentally smacking him with the back of her hand that held onto the loose still. Naruto gagged. She looked back at him in confusion and then sheepishly.

"Sorry about this." she said gesturing to the skin. "Anyways, we need to get the hell out of here and somewhere safe. Sasuke's in pretty bad shape and I'm almost out of energy. I'll tell you everything once we settle down for a bit." she finished pulling out a small scroll and rolling the skin into it, then rolling it back up and tieing the scroll shut tightly. She wasn't quite sure what she could do with it, and she wasn't quite able to seal it so she did the next best thing. She made a future note to make a storage scroll of ziploc baggies from now on.

"Ah, okay. I can take Teme! Man, he really does look bad..." Naruto said, his tone softening at the end of the sentence. Rui nodded not paying much attention to his handling of Sasuke trying to keep her sensing ability scanning around them until they go to a safe place and then she could pass out. Even being in the Snake Sannin's presence had drained her and she felt bad that she hadn't been able to do much to help Sasuke or Naruto, and really the only thing that changed was that Naruto didn't get the Five-Elements Seal done to him, and due to that still had access to the Kyuubi and that he was conscious.

"Come on then, let's go." The kunoichi said and Naruto grunted shifting Sasuke's weight on his back to a more comfortable position. And then they were off to find a place to rest until Sasuke was conscious again.

(ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง (ง'̀-'́)ง

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1)- I don't mean this in a Mary-Sue way. This is more like a "Sasuke is a bitter child who doesn't care for Kakashi's way of teaching/teamwork training/lack of 'actual' missions" way, lol~
> 
> (2)- Rui will get the jobs that most Uchihas would traditionally see as 'beneath them/not as awesome'. The essential yet not well famed/glorified background work. This of course pleases the Sasuke Monster.
> 
> (3)- At this point Orochimaru had yet to do that gross face ripping off trick he originally did the story. Rui instead did it for him.


	6. Chapter 6

Sasuke woke up a few hours after I had and instead of unleashing an unholy amount of tainted chakra, he simply kind of went crazy in a less volatile way. It seemed that despite the seal messing with his system a flash of KI from myself and Naruto snapped him out of it. We had also managed to avoid every other team that we should've run into from canon including Team Ten. Who we had managed to run into were minor teams and Karin's failed team from Grass. None managed to get in our way due largely in part to Naruto and his Shadow Clones, not to say that we didn't help but I had my hands full making sure Sasuke didn't use the seal any and/or fall on his face from the drain of the experience.

When we were finally made it to the tower I ratted Sasuke out to Kakashi and all of the superiors there immediately, even though it bruised Sasuke's ego and made him pretty sore towards me. We were taken away into a room holding Ibiki, which made Sasuke and Naruto both nervously shuffle and hide behind Kakashi and myself, and told to recount everything. Naruto obviously wasn't that helpful seeing as he had been separated from us for the majority of the encounter trying not to be eaten by a giant summons. Sasuke and I were dealt with the majority of reliving the encounter although it seemed that Sasuke hadn't been able to even remember the strike from Orochimaru, which I found odd since I knew it was painful. I had provided a bit more in depth story seeing as Orochimaru was more focused on the 'Last Uchiha' rather than myself, as well as my seeming resistance to KI, which was tested secretly behind my back again by both Kakashi and Ibiki. It was odd being able to sense it but not having it affect me in any way, something that my superiors found interesting obviously since one did not simply shake off KI the levels of theirs not to mention a _Sannin's_.

We had arrived a day early so we were able to rest up, mainly Sasuke and myself. Of course, shortly after our arrival did the Sound Trio and Kabuto's team show up; the Sound Trio attempting to corner us **_INSIDE_** of the building despite it being crawling with other higher ranking ninja. Seems that they had been that desperate to face us and were afraid of going back to their master empty handed. Kabuto and his team merely acted like 'helpful senpais' which I spotted as obvious bullshit a mile away and was able to steer my current two team mates away from. I also had come to the fact that more teams had been in the running than in the original series and thus we had an extra team from Kumo make it to this stage of the finals, all looked to be equipped with swords of various styles and about three years older than the rest of the Konoha Teams (Minus of course Kabuto's 'Team'). It made me wonder what other changes there could be happening now, and whether or not they could work in our favor.

"Nee-chan!" I shouted calling TenTen's attention over to myself and smiled at her when she spotted me, her brown eyes alighting with happiness.

"Imouto!" She cried back happily and ran over to where I was standing with Naruto and Sasuke and then giving me a bear hug. "I'm so glad you made it! Not that I didn't think you wouldn't but still, you guys don't have a Neji who can see everything and avoid it all!"

The boys and I exchanged glances, between Naruto's clones and my own sensing we were able to do just as well, not that TenTen might believe it...

"I'm glad to see you made it as well, I hope we can continue on to the final stage together, perhaps we will end up facing against each other." I said giving her a playful smirk, one which she mimicked a second later.

"Why, if you just wanted your ass to be kicked by your beautiful and kind older sister you should've just asked up front~" She said before we both ended up cracking up. It was nice to be with her again, I had missed her dearly, having last seen her right at the beginning of the first exams. Afterwards we hadn't been able to meet up at any point, for even when we had to restock supplies Gai-sensei had taken his entire team to restock whilst Kakashi just sorta let us go free, just sorta waving his hand at us and saying 'Just don't forget rations'.

"Hey, Rui-chan, is this your sister? She looks kind of familiar!" Naruto said squinting and studying TenTen who eyeballed him back before shooting me a look of some kind. "Well, yes, she graduated the year before we did and you probably saw her briefly when I made Lee-nii run away." I replied and Naruto nodded his head rapidly and muttered, "That's right, that's right." under his breath, TenTen rolled her eyes at him.

"Anyways, how long have you guys been here? We got in about two hours ago." She asked still looking at Naruto and then Sasuke, probably judging them.

"Yesterday afternoon or so. We had some difficulties but it wouldn't be a proper chunin exam without it, huh?" I said and looked at Sasuke sensing his fluctuation emotions. I couldn't quite pinpoint them but I think he wasn't quite ready to talk about the curse mark to anyone not already involved and I was more than happy to not tell my Nee-chan in case she decided to flick her over protective switch because of it and hide me away for the rest of my life. I gave him a nod hoping to give way that I wouldn't tell anyone and Naruto was too distracted by Kiba's team coming over and trying to pick a fight with him.

"Well that's good! I guess it makes sense seeing as you have the Uchiha on your team an' all." she said nodding.

"WHAT WAS THAT DOG BREATH?!" I heard Naruto yell and sighed heavily before turning around and grabbing the back of his jacket in an effort to stop this all before it began. Shino and Hinata seemed to be doing the same for Kiba with Akamaru yipping and then tugging on Kiba's pants leg with his little teeth. Naruto continued to struggle until I flared some KI at him and like a rowdy kitten being held at the scruff of their neck by the momma cat, he immediately went limp.

"S-Sorry, Rui-chan..." He mumbled and I nodded letting go of his jacket. "Good. The time for fighting will happen later I'm sure, so just cool off until then." I said and heard Kiba snort.

"That's right! Then I'll beat you for sure! I mean what kind of wimp do you have to be to be beaten by a gir-!" he stopped as I forced KI at him and he whimpered pathetically while I continued to stare him down, Akamaru copying him. I knew that Kiba was a good kid, I really knew it, but right now he's also an overeager and arrogant idiot. I could hear Hinata's fearful gasps and Shino's bugs buzzing as they sensed their partner's fear. I eased off my KI and flashed a small apologetic smile at the two.

"Sorry you two, and Akamaru, it seems my control...slipped." I said and turned away embarrassed by what I'd done to Shino, Hinata, and Akamaru. They certainly didn't deserve that...

"I-It's f-fine, Ueno-ch-chan." Hinata said smiling kindly back at me.

Shortly after this an announcement was made for all of us to gather in the nearby arena area. I feel my palms begin to sweat already knowing what's about to happen. How much would this be changed? Would I just be switched out for Sakura and be taking on Ino? Would Naruto still beat Kiba?

"Ne, Rui-chan, you okay? You're all pale all of a sudden?" Naruto said in a stage whisper, quite possibly the quietest he could do at that point in time. I gave him a weak smile, "Uh, well, it's just pre-fight jitters I guess!" I told him squeaking the last part of my sentence. He shot me a confused look before the Hokage did his little speech about what the chunin exams were really all about and such.

"Hey, look! Cloud nins!" I heard Kiba exclaim during the speech and shot a look at where he was pointing towards. Sure enough there they were, the team of three genin and a tall dark skinned man who was presumably their Jounin sensei. I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach and saw the noticeable flinch from both Hyuuga's; This wouldn't end well...

"Look, the tall one is dropping out!" Ino said excitedly as we watched both Kabuto and one of the Cloud genin bow out of the fights. I chewed on my lip and nearly bit through it in surprise/fright when Naruto exclaimed loudly in my ear about how he would beat everyone here. I shot him a murderous glare, KI rising and flaring briefly which quieted him up. Kakashi, finally making an appearance, began to pat me on the head. "Now, now, Rui-chan, save that for out there in the ring!" I scowled briefly before my face fell back into it's usual expression.

After that, every match went more or less how I remembered it, although due to not fighting Lee before the first part of the exams Sasuke had to pull off some moves that looked suspiciously like some of mine. He barely made it but did so anyways. When it came to Ino's fight, it ended up being against one of the Cloud genin; Okuda Koichi. He seemed to be about 15, much like the rest of his team with the lightest complexion of them, still tanned though, with green eyes and dark blonde hair. And to say it was a fight would be a compliment towards Ino...

"Winner: Okuda Koichi of Cloud!" Hayate announced, face grim. Ino had her ass handed to her, seeing as 'Okuda Koichi' was about twice as fast as her and didn't take it easy on her just because she was, what most would consider 'a little girl'. Ino had started off the match attempting to do her clan's famous Jutsu, only to have Okuda beat her to the punch, or rather beat her _with_ a punch, breaking her concentration. After that it just got worse, he practically played with her while we could only watch. Ino was too stubborn to admit defeat, and Okuda had no problems with dragging out this sick one sided beat down. Ino had finally been KO'd and had to be taken to the medics. I could feel the tension and anger rolling off of Shikamaru and her sensei. Chouji had actually popped a bag of chips and crushed them essentially to dust; He went next, and was soundly trounced.

"That's what they get for sending in Rookies." The one kunoichi from Cloud said causing her teammate to snort in amusement. I felt a spike of KI coming from all of the Leaf genin and managed to hold Naruto back from yelling at them.

"Calm down, Naruto. They've seemed to have forgotten that two _rookies_ have already beaten more 'experienced' opponents and that their own teammate dropped out." I said making sure to throw my voice over to where the Cloud nin were and giving a nod of my head to Shino who adjusted his sunglasses in response, Sasuke was a bit MIA at the moment as he was still recovering his chakra from his fight. I got a brief flare of KI from them, but I was able to shrug it off.

"That's right! Shino **_and_** Teme made it!" The blond exclaimed, shooting a look at the Cloud team and sticking his tongue out at them. I rolled my eyes but nodded. "Yes, they did."

The next match was the last of Kabuto's 'Teammates' versus Kankuro. This fight happened as much as it had in the original timeline/series, but I made sure to study and sense the fight in full, extremely curious about how puppetry felt to my odd 'sense'. I could tell immediately which was the puppet and which was the real boy. The puppet felt like most other objects but with an 'aftertaste' of its user. Kankuro himself gave off a feeling of the color purple, wood, sand, and oddly salt water.

The matches progressed until it came to my sister's fight with Temari. Despite knowing how bad it would be I could barely hold it all together and I had gripped the arena's balcony bars so hard that I had slightly warped the metal and I about lunged down to kill Temari when I saw that she had tried to throw my unconscious sister down on the strewn about weaponry, luckily Lee-Nii had been able to save her.

"Pfft, that was pathetic." the Cloud kunoichi said snidely as I frantically made my way over to my Nee-chan, tears in my eyes, and grabbed her hand. She was still unconscious but I wanted to be at her side in that moment.

"Ueno Rui of Leaf vs Matsuoka Sachi of Cloud. Will the contestants please take their places." Hayate said and then coughing harshly breaking me out of my reverie. I felt anger like acid flowing through my veins upon hearing that it was my turn and against that _Bitch_ from Cloud.

"Don't worry, Nee-chan. I have to go show a bitch her place and then I'll be right back. Gai-sensei, if you could watch over her until my fight is over, please?" I said. They had decided to not take her to the medic bay after running some preliminary scans during the few moments it took to clean out the arena of my sister's weaponry. I handed my beloved older sister to her sensei and made my way down to the arena, but on the way there I was stopped briefly by Kakashi.

"Rui, I was told to pass this message onto you if you made it this far. They said that they give you permission to let loose." He said and I smirked evilly. "Thank you for the message, Kakashi-sensei. I'll be right back~!" I said in an extremely upbeat voice. This will be **_fun_**.


	7. Chpater 7

Matsuoka Sachi smirked to herself seeing that mouthy Leaf runt weeping over her sister's 'broken' body, she couldn't wait to see the runt eat it too in the ring and even hoped that she would be chosen by Kami-sama to be the one to do it. Besides her she heard her teammates shifting and her sensei give a snort.

"Ueno Rui of Leaf vs Matsuoka Sachi of Cloud. Will the contestants please take their places." The weird coughing guy said, and honestly Leaf was _pretty_ pathetic in her eyes at this point. All of the Kunoichi thus far were weaklings and not worth her time, she honestly expected better from the home village of the legendary **_Tsunade_**.

"Ah, Sachi-chi has this in the bag~! Go show that runt how it's done~!" Koichi, her teammate said, always willing to believe that the sun rose and set because of Sachi. The Cloud kunoichi flicked her silvery locks and gave him a wink with her green eyes, "You bet, Koichi-kun~!" She said sweetly before jumping down into the ring meeting the unimpressed gaze of her opponent.

'Tch, and here she's acting like she wasn't just _weeping_ a few seconds ago.' Sachi thought getting her tanto and hidden senbon launching mechanism in place. This would be an easy win for her, a few seconds into this fight she have her opponent flat on her ass.

Ueno Rui tightened her gloves flexing her hands slightly making the leather creak slightly, and settled down into her combat stance. Sachi took in the runt, sneering. The girl looked to be about 12 at most, with dark brown locks matching that of her sister's, it was put up into a side ponytail on her left side and had a pretty little yellow ribbon tied in a bow on it. 'I can't wait to take that damn ribbon off her dumb head.' the cloud nin thought. Where her sister had dressed in pink and navy the runt seemed to dress in only earthy colors; Greens, browns, and yellow.

Sachi sneered again as she readied herself into position, hand hovering over the tanto strapped to the small of her back. The proctor raised his hand and then swiftly brought it down with a shout of "Hajime!" and then leapt back out of the way.

Sachi began by reaching for her tanto but in all actuality snatching two smoke bombs, releasing them to blind her opponent and then unloading her senbon into the smoke. She heard some grunts of pain and surprise. She smirked to herself, 'Now to finish this!' she thought to herself before weaving a subtle genjutsu around the arena.

She smirked confidently fully expecting her opponent to be paralyzed from a combo of her genjutsu and surprise senbon once the smoke cleared. After that she'd simply walk over to the runt and _rip_ that ribbon from her hair, maybe she'd even slice off that ridiculous ponytail while she was at it.

"Oh no, Rui-chan!" Naruto yelled from the overlook when he lost sight of Rui and heard her grunts of pain. He heard Kakashi give a low chuckle though, "I'll have to train you better if you think something like _that_ will take down little Rui-chan."

"What do you mean? She should be in pretty bad shape right?!" Kiba said, with Kurenai nodding grimly behind him. "Kiba's right, I sensed that Kumo-nin casting some sort of genjutsu just now." she added turning her red-ringed eyes at the Copy-nin.

"Ah, I doubt it will stick." was all Kakashi replied as the smoke cleared revealing a swaying Rui.

"Ha! So you're _still_ fighting it!" Sachi said taking out a kunai and spinning it on the end of her finger as she stalked over to the Leaf-genin. She saw the girl struggling to fight the combination of her genjutsu and poison she had coated her senbon with, gritting her teeth trying to fight off the effects. "I wonder how long you'll last, runt!" she said and began laughing cruelly.

"Longer than you." Sachi heard from behind her and spun around only to be punch in the face hard enough to send her reeling back a few feet.

"What?!" The Cloud-nin said in shock. Seeing her opponent cock her head at her as if Sachi was the stupid one.

"I said longer than you, Bitch. I'm going to be beating you today, gomen." Rui said seriously looking for a brief moment truly sincere in her apology, before her expression turned into one of pure sadistic joy, KI flaring around her like a cloak of miasma. "But see the thing is, I'm not really all that sorry, _ya know_ ~?" She said her entire countenance changing from slightly cold, blank and 'dignified' little girl to sadistic demon from the countryside in a second.

"B-but m-my sen-b-bon!"

"Ah, those, ya see, it was super easy tricking you into thinking that you hit me. Bushin are handy that way, aren't they? All I had to do was jump to the side and make up some noises, and then, bam, wait for the smoke to clear! What kind of **_idjit_** thinks that a sister of an upcoming weapons mistress wouldn't dodge immediately after she saw the smoke bombs?" the runt began to laugh heartily. Sachi was finally beginning to shake off of the shock and the KI flooded at her.

"And my genjutsu?! I know it was flawless!" 'As it always is!' she finished mentally and readying for whatever the brat would be bringing out next.

Rui stopped her laughter abruptly and shot the Cloud-nin a sly grin, "About that, genjutsus never seem to take effect on me! So, ya see, you failed twice~! And now it's my turn!" She said before taking out a kunai and advancing towards the Cloud nin who could only dodge back.

'She's like a completely different person! And being _immune_ to genjutsu?! **_BULLSHIT_! I'LL SHOW YOU!** ' the Cloud kunoichi thought to herself whilst still dodging the Leaf-Runt's wild kunai slashing. She weaved her hands quickly casting the strongest genjutsu in her arsenal, a genjutsu that also used very low and basic Lightning element as a follow up to it.

Rui paused and Sachi took this as her chance to try and lunge at the brat only to have her face pounded in by the Leaf-brat's fist and going straight down to the floor before scrambling to get up. Rui tossed her opponent a slightly confused expression, "That _smarted_! Bit like a static shock?" she said then 'hm'd' to herself.

'Shit, shit, **_SHIT_**!' What the hell's with this brat?!' Sachi thought to herself in a panic and attempted to sneak away to a better position while her opponent seemed to be thinking on her last technique. Unfortunately for the Kumo-nin, Rui wasn't as nearly distracted by her thoughts as she appeared, which was proven when she nailed Sachi in one of her hands and one of her legs with a kunai in each causing her to collapse and scream in pain.

"And just where did ya think you were goin'~? I wasn't done yet, Sachi-chi~" Rui said mockingly and blasting her opponent with KI. Sachi scrambled to rip the kunai out of her hand giving another scream of pain before turning her attention to her leg. 'What kind of demon is this?!' She thought cradling her hand and watching her opponent warily whilst trying not to soil herself from the KI that was washing over her. 'Th-There's no way a genin should have this powerful of a KI!'

" **SACHI**!" The Cloud-nin's blond teammate cried out in concern before scowling at the Leaf-runt. 'What's going on down there?! Why isn't she moving?!' he thought. Upon hearing her teammates cry Sachi snapped herself out of it and yanked the kunai sticking in her leg out wincing, and dropping it to the arena floor.

"Oh? Are ya sure that was such a great idea, Bitch-nin? You're bleeding out _pretty_ badly right now~!" The green clad kunoichi said in false concern, her hazel colored eyes wide with a hint of 'innocence', fooling nobody watching the match.

The Cloud-nin bit her lip and reached for her tanto with her right, and luckily, uninjured hand, bringing it in front of her. "All I need is to take you down before I lose too much blood! And with _this_ , I will certainly be able to!" she said before dashing straight at her opponent.

Rui studied her opponent's trajectory, at how Sachi in her state and possible lack of experience in fighting smaller enemies, over extended, opening up her guard for Rui to duck under the blade and take two quick but strong jabs at the Cloud nin's torso.

" ** _SACHIKO_ _!_** " Koichi cried out watching as his teammate gagged from the hits and fell down, hunched over, tanto clattering to the ground. He watched as the Leaf runt stared down at his teammate and tilted her head again, her expression evening back into her earlier mask.

"Winner; Ueno Rui of Leaf!" The proctor declared before coughing again slightly. Meanwhile the winning genin made her way back to her previous spectating spot ignoring the shocked looks she got from some of the other Leaf genin. She knelt down besides her still unconscious big sister and grabbed one of her hands gently.

" _See_? I took her down a peg for you, Nee-chan!" She said cheerfully and Tenten began to stir.

"Whoa! Rui-chan is **_strong_**!" Naruto suddenly said, for once not yelling and shocking many out of their staring at the Ueno siblings.

"See, I told you something like that wouldn't bother little Rui-chan! She's been trained by _Kagami Hisato_ after all~! Not to mention she's apprenticed to Koto!" Kakashi said cheerfully and ignored as Kurenai asked Asuma who they were exactly.

"Kagami Hisato is a special jounin who earned his rank due to creating his own fighting style, and Koto is Kurata Koto, one of our Intelligence experts. I knew Koto has taken on an apprentice but I had no idea that Kagami would ever teach anyone anything, especially his own style, he's a bit too solitary for that." Asuma answered the Genjutsu Mistress, taking out another cigarette and lighting it completely ignoring the glare he got from said Mistress as well. Shikamaru grumbled something like 'Troublesome' now seeing and understanding just what Ueno Rui was and who her 'Master' was. Koto had occasionally come over to the Nara Compound to bring info and the like for his father. From what he remembered the man was nosey and loud and well... _Troublesome_. Especially with his photos of his wife and now his baby they had had a few months ago.

"Next up," The proctor announced as the sign flipped through the names again, "Uzumaki Naruto of Leaf vs Inuzuka Kiba of Leaf."

**Author's Note:**

> (1)Youtiao- Youtiao, also known as the Chinese cruller, Chinese oil stick, Chinese doughnut, and fried breadstick, is a long golden-brown deep-fried strip of dough eaten in China and (by a variety of other names) in other East and Southeast Asian Cuisines. Conventionally, youtiao are lightly salted and made so they can be torn lengthwise in two. Youtiao are normally eaten at breakfast as an accompaniment for rice congee or soy milk. (Via Wikipedia)
> 
> (2)Our little Gem- Rui means 'Gem life' in Japanese and 'Sharp intellect' in Chinese. I'm sort of playing off of TenTen's duel name meaning as well, and I've decided to make it a family trait that the Ueno's name their children oddly like this. The grandfather's name is Gen, which also has two different meanings in the two languages.
> 
> Ueno means 'Upper-field' by the way.


End file.
